I might have been more humbled by my own sense of degradation, but the last word was a talisman which awoke into frenzy the demoniac hate which had long rioted in my bosom; and approaching nearer to Pilton, I leaped at him, and grasped his throat with the fierceness of the tiger. He was better built, more athletic, and stronger than myself, and in the struggle that ensued, I found myself fast wasting away; yet I could hear his short and strangled breath laboring under the iron grasp of my fingers. He now drew a small knife, and began to cut the hand which held his throat. I felt the warm blood trickling over its relaxed strength; and releasing my hold, I sunk upon the ground. He instantly fell upon me; and after a long and violent scuffle, I succeeded in rescuing myself. We were again on our feet, and I now had time to draw a small dirk from my bosom. He was ignorant that I was armed; and approaching him, as he leaned breathless and exhausted against a tree, I struck him with the weapon just below his shoulder. He gave one groan, and reeled to the earth. I was about to repeat the blow, when a piercing shriek burst upon my ear,--and Ellen Pilton fell upon the body of her prostrate brother. "Oh, God!" she cried, "kill him not--spare him!--take my life! Is it you, Lionel?" she screamed, as she looked up and recognized my features--"and would _you_ murder my brother--you would not, dear Lionel." I was silent. "Go away--I loathe, I abhor, I hate you!" Ere the first light of day had kissed the tranquil waters of the Chesapeake, my jaded horse was browzing on the fertile meadows of the Rappahannock, and I found a refuge on board the good ship "Tobacco Plant," Capt. Z., bound to London. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.